


Tracks in a Snowstorm

by terma_archivist



Category: The X-Files, due South
Genre: M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-01
Updated: 2002-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26535817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terma_archivist/pseuds/terma_archivist
Summary: Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atTER/MAand was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address onthe TER/MA collection profile.This contains graphic sex between two adult males. If you're under 17, don't read this or you may spontaneously combust. All X-Files Characters belong to Ten-Thirteen, Chris Carter and 20th Century Fox and are used without permission. (Set directly after the events of the Due South episode ""Spy v Spy'.  I couldn't resist bringing Alex Krycek into this since there's a Russian Connection...)
Relationships: Alex Krycek/Ray Vecchio
Collections: TER/MA





	Tracks in a Snowstorm

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alicettlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [TER/MA](https://fanlore.org/wiki/TER/MA) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [the TER/MA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/terma/profile).  
> This contains graphic sex between two adult males. If you're under 17, don't read this or you may spontaneously combust. All X-Files Characters belong to Ten-Thirteen, Chris Carter and 20th Century Fox and are used without permission. (Set directly after the events of the Due South episode ""Spy v Spy'. I couldn't resist bringing Alex Krycek into this since there's a Russian Connection...)

  
**Tracks in a Snowstorm  
by Jane Symons**

  
".......Even I Regained my freedom with a sigh."

Now where the hell had that come from? Jesus, must've been partnered too long with the Mountie, listening to his lectures on art and literature. It was a constant anxiety to me that Fraser was going to improve my mind.

I was staring down at my wrists like they belonged to somebody else. Some sick sonuvabitch who should know better. Red weals zigzagged across them where the handcuffs had bitten into the skin. Hell. I'll have to wear a jacket tomorrow to cover them up.

And there were the bruises on my neck. I thought of all the macho stuff I could reel off to any awkward questions. "Chick was real hungry." "How was I to know she was a vampire?" Hell, anything would do. I was well known for being half crazy.

That was my problem. If I wasn't half crazy, none of this would have happened.

When I got up from my chair, I was so stiff it felt like I'd got rheumatism or something. Fixed myself another strong vodka. Gave into a wave of paranoia, parted the blinds a few inches and surveyed the street below. A sorry-looking 2 o'clock in the morning street. Two winos arguing over something wrapped in a paper bag. The secretary who lived a few doors down the corridor coming home with yet another loser who'll feed off her for a few days and then leave.

People's lives. Other people's lives. And I hadn't a right in hell to judge any one of them. The biggest loser of them all.

At least there was no sign of him.

For now.

Moving away from the window, I caught a hint of my body odour. Jesus, I was as high as an angry skunk. Two days and I hadn't been within spitting distance of a shower or a change of clothes. The moment I'd met up with Fraser to play loony toones with Hanerhan, it'd been nonstop.

I felt filthy, like something that had climbed out from under a stone. And that feeling had nothing to do with sweat or dirt.

All the same, I decided to take a shower. Showers were good for thinking. I needed to work out exactly why I'd got into this mess.

And how on God's earth I was going to get myself out of it.

It started with Welsh. I knew that much ...

"Vecchio!"

After a recent seminar on Professionalism in the Workplace, I was writing up a report on the Almazov case we'd just wrapped up. Just to show I could do it if I wanted.

I'd detailed how Almazov had dropped down dead after I'd popped him one, explained how Hanerhan had gotten involved, which led to the arrest of the crazy Russian chick with the arms shipment, together with the disappearance of the mysterious Nollis. Who everyone knew about but yours truly. Thank you very much, caring sharing Fraser. It's okay, I'll get over it. I'm just your partner, that's all...

Anyway, this report of mine was reading more and more like a Raymond Chandler novel and I was beginning to wonder if there was any way I could cash in on the film rights.

"Vecchio!"

It was all I needed. I pushed the keyboard away from me like it suddenly smelt bad and stumbled into Welsh's office, rubbing wearily at the bridge of my nose for effect, so maybe he could get the message that I was tired.

"Hey, gimme a break, sir," I whined. I'm very good at whining, I like to put in plenty of practice. "I'm just finishin' off here. I haven't had any decent sleep for 48 hours and I'm bushed." It was a pretty impressive impersonation of a five year old who'd been kept up too late.

Welsh wasn't moved by my performance. "You on your own? Where's Fraser?"

I waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Welsh's bookcase. "He took Mr Hanerhan to the medical bay to check on his head wound. Then he was gonna take him home. Then I guess from there he'll go back to the Consulate to get some sleep. That stuff you do in between some sheets with a pillow under yer head," I added wistfully.

Welsh put a hand on my shoulder. I never knew whether to take it as affection or a threat of some kind. "You look tired, detective. In fact, I could go further and say you look like shit but I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings."

I hung my head wearily. "Thank you, sir. I appreciate it."

Welsh guided me to the door of his office as if I'd suddenly lost the use of my eyeballs. "You can feel free to get all the sleep you want— after you've been to see Internal Affairs. They're waiting for you upstairs in Personnel."

I pulled away from him angrily. "Oh you have got to be kiddin' me!"

"Do I look like I'm kidding? April Fool, Officer Vecchio, and you can go home now after all?"

"But you said you'd keep them off my back!" I protested.

"I said I'd try to keep them off your back. I tried and I failed. What do you want, a written apology in triplicate? Now off you go. They're waiting for you."

I sighed heavily, a big production of a sigh, hoping to make him feel guilty but Welsh was walking round his desk, thinking about other stuff. I was old news.

Jesus Christ. Internal Affairs! I didn't deserve Internal Affairs right then. Hell, I'd been writing up a report, godammit, my first in about three months and this is how I get repaid. Jesus. Well fuck the whole bunch of them. At least there was one thing, I was going alone, I could protect Fraser from the worst part of police work. The part where the cop takes on the role of criminal. Where a guy can be grilled for hours over minutiae that make his head spin. Head down, I stumped out of Welsh's office feeling like I was destined for the electric chair.

I passed by Huey and Dewey who were having a heated argument over the treatment of bursitis. Seeing me, they moved in like two hunters spotting vulnerable prey.

"Ray!" Dewey said, blocking my way before I could leave the squad room. "Have you heard this one? What do homosexual spiders do?"

At least I'd be protected from their lousy jokes in Internal Affairs.

"Dunno, what?" I inquired, about as encouraging as ice cracking under foot.

"They go for each other's flies," Huey announced with a theatrical flourish. They were both shaking with laughter, real funny guys.

I shook my head. "Jesus Christ." I moved on, through the swing doors to the lift.

I was busy concentrating on driving—gas, pedal, gas— so that when Mr Hanerhan piped up with "I like your young man", it took me thoroughly by surprise.

"My young man?" I repeated, frowning ahead, not daring to take my eyes off the road.

"How many young men have you got? You know, the skinny one with the hair that sticks out all over the place."

"Oh, you mean Ray." The thought of him brought a smile to my face and I lapsed in concentration, narrowly missing a stop sign.

"Ray, that's it. Good man in a crisis, nice sense of stealth. He has guts."

"Well, I consider myself very lucky to have him as a partner."

"I'm sure. How was the apartment, by the way?"

Look left and right then left again. "Well, Diefenbaker got thrown off course and we were doubling back on ourselves when we heard your cry for help. I must remember to phone the landlord later and apologise. Perhaps he'll give me another viewing appointment."

"It would be good for you to have your own place together."

Poor old Albert, he really wasn't thinking straight. "Oh no, the apartment was for myself."

"Ah. I see." Mr Hanerhan tapped the side of his nose conspiratorily, as if I'd just used some meaningful kind of password. "I understand completely. You need to cover yourselves. Make it look as if you have separate places. Very wise."

Gas, pedal, gas. Or was it pedal, gas, pedal? Oh dear. "But we are living in separate places." I accelerated the car and we moved along uncertainly like an arthritic kangeroo. Diefenbaker huffed disdainfully from the back seat. That wolf has always been something of a back seat driver.

"I understand completely," Albert repeated, tapping the side of his nose again.

Mr Hanerhan was behaving a little oddly, even for him. I had the distinct feeling that he was somehow barking up the wrong tree but it wasn't clear which one. The doctor at the medical bay had said that Albert was showing no signs of concussion but you could never be too careful with an elderly person.

I decided to make sure Mr Hanerhan had an early night. Then perhaps he would talk more sensibly in the morning.

"Name?"

"Detective Ray Vecchio."

The receptionist in Personnel looked up at me and flinched like I was the scariest thing she'd seen all day. Must have looked worse than shit.

"I'm one of the good guys," I explained to reassure her.

"They all say that." She was as frosty as something straight out of the freezer. She had blond hair and blue eyes, the same coloring as me, and ordinarily I'd start working on her with my usual repartee but lately ordinarily didn't seem to work and I almost had to force myself to pay women any attention. Maybe I was sickening for something. Maybe I was just sickening.

"What do homosexual spiders do?" I sounded halfhearted about it, even to my own ears.

"Interview room 2," she announced.

"That's not the right answer."

"I don't care what homosexual spiders do. They want you in Interview room 2."

I shrugged and wandered away from her. I was trying to understand why I felt so alone when the Mountie wasn't around. I'd never felt this alone because Stella wasn't around. And was this really an appropriate line of cerebral enquiry when I was about to be chewed up by an Internal Affairs official? Odd the stuff that popped into my head these days. I removed the gum from my mouth and flicked it into a trash can. Then I knocked at the door of interview room number 2.

"Come in."

I braced myself and walked inside. Seeing the man who stood there waiting for me behind the desk, my worst fears were instantly realised. Police work was the only thing I knew but at that particular moment, a sudden change of career seemed like a really good idea.

"Detective Raymond Kowalski." Familiar green eyes, set wide apart and shaped like a cat's. Sleek hair and a muscular, graceful body shape. Everything cat-like. Big cat. Dangerous cat. Panther or leopard. The man was walking round the desk, holding out his hand. "It's been a long time."

I swallowed uncomfortably. "Detective Ray Vecchio," I corrected. "I'm currently working under cover." I didn't shake the man's hand. It wasn't so much bad manners as common sense survival instinct. Not a good idea to put your hand in a panther cage. I'd heard rumours about this guy. You didn't mess around with him. "What on God's earth are you doing in Internal Affairs, Krycek?"

"Connor," Krycek corrected smugly. "I'm currently working under cover as well." He let his hand fall down by his side. If he felt a sense of rejection, he wasn't showing it.

I had to smile a little.

"You find my under cover name amusing, Detective Vecchio?"

"The name? No. The fact that we're all under cover, yeah, I find that funny. Pretty soon, we'll have a President who's under cover and none of us will know where or who the fuck we are."

Krycek wandered round the desk, flopping gracefully into the chair. No-one could flop more gracefully than Krycek and I envied him that. "It's getting under covers that's been the ruin of many a President."

Oh droll. Even his jokes were graceful. I sat down opposite him and stared ahead at a team building poster depicting four men skydiving, creating an impressive formation. "Work together and the sky's the limit," the poster read. Made me want to puke. Two green cat eyes were studying me like the guy was getting ready to pounce any moment, I could feel them burning into me across the room. It was all part of the process: Keep silent and he'll start talking, he won't be able to stand the tension. Well, I got news for you, pal, that stuff don't work with me. Trying to keep my cool, I continued to study the poster.

I've had better times in dentist's waiting rooms. After several minutes, I knew every damn detail of the poster, felt intimately acquainted with the four skydivers, as if I knew their names and their backgrounds, their wives, their families, what they had for breakfast and whether or not they had a record. Okay, so now I knew everything there was to know about the team building poster. What else was there to read? The silence in the room was building up til it took on a character of its own. I could almost visualise a big muscle-bound brute with a heavy truncheon that it slapped onto the palm of its hand, eyeing me like I could be the next meal. Oh shit, this was unbearable. I looked back to Krycek. "Well, much as I'm enjoying the cut and thrust of our conversation —"

"Cut and thrust?" Krycek repeated. "That doesn't sound like you. Oh yes, of course, you're working with an RCMP at the moment, aren't you. The Queen's English must be rubbing off on you."

Fuck. I'd only been in the room five minutes and already Krycek had homed in on the one subject I'd wanted to avoid. Fraser. I'd gone in there with the intention of keeping Fraser out of it, only to have him mentioned at the first available opportunity. All I could do now was talk and divert Krycek's attention.

"Guess you want some clarification over the death of Karl Almazov. That's why I'm here, right?"

Krycek said nothing, just regarded me with a level stare.

"Like I said in my report, I apprehended Almazov because he was beatin' up on this old guy, Albert Hanerhan, who's a friend of — who's everyone's friend, kinda colorful type character around the area. Almazov put up a fight so I threw him a punch and he fell to the ground dead. Turned out he was a Russian spy with a cyanide cap in his tooth."

"Hmmmm."

Jesus, don't you start with the hmmmm's.

Krycek studied the ceiling for a moment like somone checking whether it could do with a coat of paint. "Why do you suppose, detective, that a Russian spy would beat up an old man?"

"Wants the ticket to the ballet."

"Well I know Russians love ballet but —"

"The ticket is a set up for the meet over the arms shipment. Almazov's the buyer."

"Ah, the arms shipment." Krycek became more alert for some reason, opening the file in front of him. "Let's go back to Almazov for a moment. He was brought into the morgue as a John Doe. You took his fingerprints and tried to find a match from the FBI files with no luck. But somehow you've still managed to identify him. How did that happen?"

Mother of fuck. Now I knew why Krycek was involved. The FBI were concerned for their damn security. They withheld fingerprint identification on Almazov but we got it all the same. They didn't know Fraser could hack into the RCMP database and now they're wondering how we did it. So they've sent Krycek, who appeared to be working freelance, which made him even more dangerous than I first thought because he didn't have to stick to the book. A little too late, I remembered Welsh's warning: "You don't wanna get involved with the Feds. It's always a disaster." Way I saw it, my only option was to stall til I could talk it over with Fraser. "I'm not allowed to divulge my source."

"Oh please," Krycek scoffed. "You've been watching too many James Bond films, detective."

I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalent. I looked back at the skydiving poster but it offered no immediate solution, other than taking a jump out the window, an idea I wasn't going to rule out entirely.

"Withholding information during an Internal Affairs investigation is a serious offence, you know that, I'm sure."

I took a deep breath, feeling like I was launching myself into space. "I'm not sure this is an Internal Affairs investigation. You're not followin' usual procedure. Like there should always be at least two officers present. I don't even know whether there's one officer present here. Last I heard, you'd done a disappearin' act from Washington —"

"I wouldn't worry yourself over who I'm working for, detective." Krycek got to his feet and walked round the desk. He placed one buttock gracefully on the edge, letting his leg swing freely. You could almost hear the unsheathing of claws. I felt like one of the skydivers, suspended in mid air with no safe ground underneath me. "Suffice it to say that this particular security leak has certain international repercussions. You have one or two very powerful people feeling antsy, detective. And that isn't a comfortable position to be in." His voice held the chill from a grave. I felt the cropped hairs on the back of my neck trying to crawl away somewhere. The rest of me was tempted to join them. I found it hard to swallow and I noticed Krycek's eyes tracking the lift of my Adam's apple with predatory interest. I had an icy vision of a cell in a Siberian prison camp, with fish eyes in the soup. "You'd better go and contact your source immediately, detective, so we can clear this up."

* * *

"Good evening. You have reached the Canadian Consulate and this is Constable Turnbull speaking. How may I help you?"

Fuck. "Turnbull! Is Fraser there?"

"May I know who it is enquiring after the whereabouts of— "

"It's me, you damn idiot! You know very well who it is!" I took a swig of cold coffee that had been on my desk for as long as I could remember.

"Might I suggest, sir, that it would be much more polite if you'd give me your name."

"I'll give you my fist, Turnbull, if you don't tell me where Fraser is!" I saw Frannie turn around at her desk and stare at me curiously over her glasses.

"Excuse me one moment while I switch the receiver over to my other ear. I would be grateful, Detective Vecchio, if you could lower your voice a little. And as to your enquiry, Constable Fraser phoned in about half an hour ago to report that he was putting Mr Hanerhan to bed and would be back at the Consulate by 9 o'clock this very evening."

I covered my face with my free hand. This clown was the icing on the cake. "Thank you," I said. "See, that wasn't so very hard, was it, Turnbull?"

"It was really quite easy."

"Is the Ice—is Inspector Thatcher there?"

"No, she's away this evening on a high level meeting with her —"

"Swedish masseur."

"How on earth did you know —"

"Is Diefenbaker there? Is anyone there who has an IQ above 15?"

"I'm sorry, Detective Vecchio, but this isn't your lucky night."

"Okay. Okay. Look, Turnbull, I need Fraser to contact me urgently. Matter of life or death."

"Whose death?" He sounded intrigued.

"Mine."

"Oh, well then, it's not that urgent."

"Turnbull!"

"Only jesting, I assure you."

Jesus Christ. "Listen up, Turnbull, forget this whole damn conversation. I'm gonna go home for a shower and a change of clothes. Then I'll come round to the Consulate and wait for Fraser. Got that?"

"Understood. I've forgotten this whole conversation."

I slammed the phone down and sat glaring at it as if it might come alive and start talking back at me in a Canadian accent. Frannie was sashaying up to my desk, holding one of her psychology books. How much worse could the day possibly get?

"Frannie." I held up both hands in a gesture of warning. "Whatever it is yer gonna say, don't." I could see Huey and Dewey across the room, settling back in their chairs to watch us, sure of some good entertainment.

Frannie perched on the edge of my desk as if she was doing an impersonation of Krycek. All at once there didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the room. I wanted to get out.

"You know, Ray, Socrates once said that an unexamined life isn't worth living. Are you at all aware of the irrational behaviour you're displaying at the moment? As far as I can see, your ego has completely taken over your psyche."

Huey snorted. Okay, that did it. I really had to get out or I'd lose control completely and it's not a pretty sight. I stood up, grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair. "Frannie, you tell Socrates to go examine his asshole for all I care! I don't give a shit even if my ego has my psyche by the throat and I don't wanna hear any more about homosexual spiders or skydivers or whatever! I'm goin' home where I can be as irrational as I damn well please!"

As I was storming my way out of the squad room, I heard a puzzled Frannie say, "Homosexual skydivers?"

First thing I did when I got home was to talk to the turtle. Like any sane well adjusted guy at the end of a bad day.

"Hi there, Thomasina." I bent a little so I could get a good look at her and tapped on the side of the tank. Turtle code for come and say hello. She ambled over to me. "Listen, I'm sorry I had to leave you with the wolf but you know what the Mountie's like when he's got an idea in his head. He won't listen." The turtle blinked up at me wisely. She knew what the Mountie was like. "Let me tell you, girl, I've had a Jesus of a day."

But Thomasina Turtle was unimpressed. Maybe her day had been worse. She hadn't had breakfast yet and it was already time for supper. She made her way over to her food bowl and stared down at it pointedly.

I sighed and straightened up. "Oh that's just great. I'm spillin' my guts and all you can think of is your stomach." Almost at the same time as I turned to go to the kitchen for turtle food, I felt the cropped hairs on the back of my neck stand up again. Krycek was stepping out from the kitchen, a gun in his hand, smiling at me.

"Typical female," he said. "I've told you before, you should try males."

I considered reaching for the gun in my holster but it seemed too much like suicide to be an attractive idea. "And I've told you before, I'm straight. Krycek, what the fuck are you doin' here?" It looked like Thomasina was going to be kept waiting for yet another meal. Krycek had changed from a suit into an MIB. Leather jacket, t-shirt and jeans. Black panther. He excuded danger and sex, and not necessarily in that order. Watching him, something in me stirred that had no business being stirred. It happened with the Mountie. A certain look, a touch on the arm, anything could trigger it off. It was a response I'd been trying hard lately to ignore or explain away and here was Krycek setting it off again. What the hell was happening to me? I thought briefly about the pretty receptionist in Internal Affairs and then wondered if Krycek knew what homosexual spiders did. He looked as if he might.

"You made it far too easy for me, detective. Didn't you think I'd tap your phone, waiting for you to contact your source? I hadn't thought of Fraser though. I checked the Ottawa RCMP database control and an enquiry about Almazov was logged yesterday night, via the Canadian Consulate, via Chicago PD 27th Division. Very clever."

Guilty as charged. Kowalski, you stupid fucking idiot. "It was my idea, I made him do it."

Krycek giggled, a husky wicked sound. "I hope Fraser appreciates such blind loyalty." He was slowly inching closer, his gun aimed vaguely at my stomach. I was tempted to retreat but stood my ground. "I don't believe you, detective. It would have been Fraser's decision. Only an RCMP would've known it was even possible to do it. And from what I've heard about Fraser, it must have been something important to make him break the rules. I mean, he didn't even bother to get authorisation clearance."

My stomach did a somersault. I remembered Fraser's words, "What I'm doing now could be considered grounds for treason." I had a mental picture of the Mountie being sent back to Canada for trial, seeing him walking onto the plane, the red serge disappearing from sight. "Fraser was concerned that Mr Hanerhan's life was in danger and it turned out he was right."

Only inches away from me, Krycek snaked a hand inside my jacket and removed the gun. "Oh I'm sure he had the best of intentions. But do you really think that's going to carry any weight when he's hauled up for a disciplinary hearing?"

I could see Fraser waving a sad goodbye to me through the plane window. Beside him, Diefenbaker pressed a wet nose against the glass. Jesus, I'd never had 3-D Walt Disney type anxieties before. Then an idea occurred to me. "Just a minute. If you're gonna recommend disciplinary action against Fraser, why have you come here to tell me about it?"

An elegant hand lifted handcuffs from the back pocket of my jeans. Krycek stood twirling them around his fingers. "Smart boy. You're figuring maybe I haven't come to you for conversation, however much talking to you may warm my Russian soul."

"Get out of here, Krycek, you're no more Russian than I'm Polish."

Krycek grinned. "Puzdrahv lyahyoo."

"What d'yer want?" I snapped, wishing I could say something sassy back in Polish.

"To make a deal with you, detective. Remember that seminar where we first met?"

"The one the Feds arranged with Chicago PD? Information Sharing in the 21st Century? Yeah, I still have the homework scribblers."

"And do you recall what I said to you back then?"

I narrowed my eyes like I was trying to retrieve a memory. "Do you suck cock?"

The room suddenly went quiet as if Krycek, Thomasina and me were all really surprised I'd said that. I thought I heard Krycek draw a sharp intake of breath. "Well, I'm deeply touched that you remember but I wasn't thinking of that exactly. I was thinking more along the lines of what I said to you after you'd tried to convince me you were 100% heterosexual."

I shrugged, feining disinterest, while my heart was speeding up its beats per minute. "Dunno. Some crap about knowin' where to come if I ever reconsidered?"

"Exactly." Krycek studied the handcuffs absentmindedly. "I do envy you being able to carry your sex toys around with you like this. Shall we play?"

I grabbed the glasses that had been hanging round my neck for the past two days and put them on, staring closely at Krycek as if he was some rare species that had wandered by accident into my apartment. The blue clip-on shades were standing out at right angles to the glasses, guess I must have had the look of a mad professor. "Hello. Am I goin' completely nuts or have you just attempted to blackmail me?"

"Now which question do you want me to answer?" Krycek put his head to one side, studying me intently. "Do you feel safer behind those glasses? They say you shouldn't hit a man wearing glasses but I don't recall anything about not fucking a man wearing glasses."

"Very funny." I was shifting my weight rapidly from one leg to the other, something I only do when really agitated. "I do not believe this is happenin' to me. I just do not believe it. This is the kind of stuff that happens to women. Women like Demi Moore —"

"You're prettier than she is," Krycek interrupted, "and your sacrifice would be far more noble than hers. She did it because Robert Redford offered her a million. You'd be doing it for the Mountie."

"Jesus," I said, panic stricken. "Think I'm gonna puke." 

* * *

With my usual excellent sense of timing, I arrived at the Consulate in time for tea. I found Constable Turnbull in the kitchen, swilling hot water around in the teapot, warming it thoroughly. A cup of tea could be ruined by inattention to that important detail. In fact, I remembered a distant relative who demanded complete silence until brewing of the tea was safely underway.

"Ah, good evening, Constable Fraser, sir." Turnbull added another teaspoon of tea. "How was Mr Hanerhan?"

I began collecting together some food scraps for Diefenbaker. "Well, he was understandably very tired. He fell asleep almost immediately. There was nothing suitable in the bedroom to read to him and so, once I'd put him to bed, I told him about the time I watched an empty cabin for 11 days. Do you know, I'd only got to day 2 and he was already fast asleep."

"Amazing," said Turnbull, shaking his head in wonder.

"And it occurred to me that for all the good they did me, I may as well have spent those 11 days asleep myself." I undid the top two buttons of my jacket. "Were there any messages for me?"

"Ah." Turnbull looked a little uncomfortable and busied himself with pouring out the milk.

I frowned at him. "Was that an ah yes or an ah no?"

"It was both, or neither, depending on which way you look at it."

"If I may say so, you're making even less sense than usual, Constable Turnbull."

Turnbull drew himself erect. "I'm sorry, sir. There are no messages for you but I did have a most peculiar conversation with Detective Vecchio."

"That's nothing unusual, surely. Most of your conversations with Detective Vecchio are peculiar."

"Yes but this one was even more peculiar than usual. And then, at the end of it all, he told me to forget it had ever happened."

"Well what was it about?"

"I've forgotten, sir." Turnbull handed Fraser his tea.

"Thank you." I gazed into the depths of the cup, wondering whether to forget the conversation I'd just had with Turnbull. But my curiousity had been piqued sufficiently for me to draw a deep breath and continue. "Is there nothing about it that you remember?"

Turnbull sat down at the table opposite me. "Nothing, sir. He told me to forget it and so I did." Orders were, after all, orders.

"All right then. I'll try some simple word associations and see if anything triggers your memory. Baseball."

Nothing.

"GTO"... "Dancing"... "Women"... "27th Precinct"... "Chinese takeout"... "Pizza"...

Still nothing.

"Well if it wasn't about any of those things, it couldn't have been a matter of life or death."

"That's it!" Turnbull said suddenly, putting down his cup. "He said it was a matter of life or death!"

"What was?"

"I've forgotten."

I restrained the urge to hold Turnbull upside down by his ankles and shake him. "It's odd that he should use the words life and death and then ask you to forget about it."

Turnbull nodded helplessly. "That's very true, sir."

We both fell silent. I am ashamed to admit that I was wishing I could have a more intelligent co-worker. Perhaps Turnbull was wishing that my friends were less complicated and unusual. Having bolted supper, Diefenbaker belched delicately from under the table. I have often suggested that he eat with more restraint but he never seems to listen. Well, being deaf I realise he can't listen. Perhaps that's the problem. I realised my mind was starting to ramble.

"All the same," I said finally, "I think I'll phone him to make sure everything's all right."

I carried my tea into the Consulate office. There was no answer from Ray at home, only the usual terse message from the machine to say he wasn't available. I phoned Ray's extension at the 27th Precinct and Francesca answered.

"Ah, good evening, Francesca."

She lowered her voice to a purr. "Oh hi, Frase. What can I do for you?"

"Is Ray there?

I could hear her sigh abruptly into the phone. "No, he's not. He stormed out of here a while ago."

"Stormed?"

"Yeah. Stormed. In full Prima Donna Vecchio mode."

"Do you know why?"

"Why does the earth spin on its axis? Who knows? I won't repeat what he said about Socrates but he mentioned something about homosexual skydivers and that he was going home to be irrational."

I wondered if lack of sleep was making me lose touch with reality. "Does that make any sense to you, Francesca, because it makes absolutely none to me."

"No. It makes no sense to me either. But then Ray never does."

"I see. Well, thank you kindly, Francesca. And, by the way, the earth spins on its axis due to the gravitational pull of the —"

"I know, Frase," she said. "I was just being allegorical."

"You mean rhetorical."

"Whatever."

* * *

When Krycek kissed me, I heard bells ringing in my head.

Could this mean we were made for each other?

Then I realised it was my phone.

Krycek carried on regardless, as if he was intent on sucking the life out of me. I fought down the desire to respond but it was like standing in the path of a hurricane. My body was being swept along by the force of Krycek's need.

Being kissed by a man—strong, strange, forbidden. Muscular arms holding me, muscular thighs pressing into mine, something I oughtn't to be thinking about throbbing hard and hot against my stomach. Jesus, it was everything I thought it might be. Made me want to surrender, relinquish control, ask to be fucked like I always did in the fantasies I tried to forget I had... only it was the wrong person. Wanted to know what it was like to be possessed and overwhelmed by a body larger and stronger than my own... only it was the wrong body.

With a huge effort at self-control, I forced my mouth away from Krycek's. I heard my own voice, asking the caller to leave a number. Felt as if I was listening to a voice from the past, a more innocent past when things were a lot simpler. "I should answer that," I protested.

"Why?" Krycek panted, biting vampire-style into my neck. I'd have a bruise there in the morning.

"It could be my mother. She could be sick."

Moving further down my jugular, Krycek bit into the flesh again, not hard enough to hurt, but sufficient to send tendrils of pleasure down my spine. "You'll have to do better than that."

I moaned, feeling like I was giving up another little part of myself. Soon there'd be nothing left of the heterosexual Ray Kowalski to protest. Would I ever be the same after this? Would everybody be able to tell? I shut my eyes tightly, like a child thinking maybe everything will go away if... I heard the message finish, there was a moment's silence and the caller hung up. One of life's sick little jokes. It must have been Fraser. I didn't have many friends and those that bothered to call would leave fairly typical messages, like "Cut the crap, Ray, godammit I know you're there", or simply "Shit". The Mountie hardly ever left a message, he hated machines. He preferred to keep trying til he found me home.

Thinking of Fraser made me panic. I had other plans, other hopes and desires. I was going in the wrong direction, out of control. I tried pushing Krycek away but the other man was far stronger. "How do I know I can trust you to keep your side of the deal?"

Krycek laughed into my neck and hugged me so tightly that I was literally swept off my feet, held a few inches above the ground in a bear hug. It seemed an odd brotherly kind of gesture til Krycek ground a rampant erection against me. Suggestive. Very suggestive. "You're beautiful, Ray. Even now you're pretending that this is all some wicked seduction on my part."

"What are you saying? What the fuck else can it possibly be?"

Pulling away from me a little, winking slyly and meaningfully, Krycek ran his fingers lightly over the front of my jeans. Holy shit, I realised that I was as rock hard as he was.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Krycek said with a smug expression that made me want to punch his teeth right down his throat, "but I believe that's a sign of sexual interest and desire."

Before I could stop myself, I said, "I was thinking of someone else."

Krycek's ego showed no sign at all of damage. In fact, he looked delighted. "Someone else? Well, it has to be male. There's no way you could've been imagining I'm a woman." And in a tone that made it plain he knew the answer, Krycek said, "Now, I wonder who it could be?"

Then the damn phone rang again. 

* * *

**PART TWO**

Oh dear.

Ray's message had kicked in once again. I listened resolutely through to the end and then cleared my throat as if about to make a speech. Unaccustomed as I am... And I was unaccustomed. I couldn't help feeling there was something faintly foolish about talking to one of these machines. Determined to overcome my inhibitions, I began my reply. "Good evening. This is Constable Benton Fraser RCMP, the date is the 23rd June and the time is —" I checked my watch "— 21.32 hours, and I am phoning from the Canadian Consulate in the city of Chicago." Well, that was probably enough of the formalities. "Ray, I know you and I often disagree over the virtues of logic versus instinct but right now you'll be glad to hear I'm working with my instinct and it's telling me that you're at home. I realise that there's a 99% probability that you're not answering your phone because you don't want to but I'd be extremely grateful if you'd just let me know that you're all right. I have reason to be concerned over your welfare." I paused. There was still no answer. "In fact, I'd go further and say that my concern is sufficient to bring me over to your apartment to check on your welfare in person if you don't answer your phone."

I heard a click at the other end of the line and Ray reply, with even less respect for the social graces than usual, "Sweet Jesus, Fraser, I already have one mother, I don't need another."

"Ray!"

"What on God's earth is this all about, Fraser? Have you been talkin' to Frannie about the state of my id?"

"Well, among other things —"

"Listen, my id is totally groovy. I just had words with Frannie is all. I'm fine. I'm good. Okay now?"

"Are you sure you're all right, Ray? You're very breathless." I'd known Ray to be sullen, angry and even sleepy on the phone but never out of breath.

"Fraser. Why are people usually breathless when they answer the phone?"

"Because they're suffering from chronic emphysema with consequent constriction of the —"

"No, Fraser, it's because they're in the middle of havin' sex. You know, s-e-x."

"Oh." I could hear Ray's rapid breathing, accompanied by someone else's, someone unmistakeably male. Then a whispered command that would have been inaudible to anyone else: "Get rid of him." For some reason, I felt my stomach constrict. Ray with another man? Surely I must have been mistaken, a trick of the ears. Only they were never usually wrong.

"Look, Fraser, I can't keep the lady waitin' any longer. Gotta go. See ya tomorrow, okay?"

The lady? The phone clicked off, leaving a single monotonous tone that reminded me of the moment when the patient loses the will to live. I replaced the receiver slowly as if in a dream.

"Get rid of him." Obviously an ardent lover. I could hear the passion in his voice.

"Can't keep the lady waitin'."

Why would Ray lie to me? Surely he knew by now that there was no need, that he had the security of my friendship, whatever he did, whatever happened? And if he didn't, it was certainly time he found that out.

Why did people usually lie? Shame or fear. The desire to protect. I preferred the latter motive. It would be just like Ray to want to protect me, particularly from the more sordid aspects of life. But there was nothing sordid about a homosexual affair, not to me anyway. Didn't Ray know that homosexuals were treated with absolute equality in Canada and therefore, as a Canadian, I'd treat it as an everyday part of life?

All the same, my feelings were far from being everyday ones when I thought of my partner with another man. I'd grown so used to the idea of him as heterosexual, I'd seen him with Stella, watched him trying to get dates with the girls at the precinct and that had never troubled me. I'd accepted it as part of Ray, along with the M&Ms in the coffee and the passion for dancing. Accepted that there was no hope for me...

To calm myself, I marshalled the events of the past two hours in my mind in a neat and orderly manner. One, Ray had apparently left the Precinct in a state of some distress, which Francesca had attributed to Socrates and homosexual skydivers, expressing the desire to go home in order to be irrational. Two, Ray had telephoned the Consulate and at some stage during his peculiar conversation with Turnbull had used the words life and death. And three, I'd discovered that Ray was not alone at home, irrational or otherwise, and that he was in the company of another man, possibly one of the aforementioned homosexual skydivers At least Socrates could be safely ruled out there.

It was time for another cup of tea. Arranged in order, the facts seemed to make even less sense than before. The important thing was that Ray was all right, albeit breathless. The rest would have to wait until the following day, when I felt sure my friend would be able to explain everything.

It was the first time I'd seen Krycek taken off guard. He indicated the phone with an elegant nod. "Is he always like that?"

I shrugged. I no longer thought of Fraser as a freak or a weirdo like I'd done in the early days of our partnership. He was just Fraser being Fraser and as long as Fraser was being Fraser, all was right with the world. I said, "He's Canadian." It was no longer a dismissive explanation to stop any further embarrasing questions. It meant, "He's okay, he's just different."

Krycek had barely let up on his kisses. I was allowed sufficient oxygen to sustain life and that was about it. And his touch was so skilled and knowing it was hard not to fall into the feeling that we'd been lovers before. I was beginning to feel like something left on the stove to simmer for so long that it could boil over at any time. It was a scary, exhilarating feeling. I wanted Krycek to stop and I wanted him to keep on. I loathed the man even while I was longing for him. I tried to stifle an animal moan of pleasure.

"Oh yeah," Krycek breathed into my neck, his breath warm and moist. "Such a hot, sexy baby. Knew you'd be delicious. I'm going to make you moan, make you burn, I'm going to make you scream."

Words like caresses. Caresses as wicked as his words. I felt my desire grind up another notch as if it was stretched on the rack. Krycek was guiding me towards the bedroom.

"Take what you want, Krycek," I panted, the words half swallowed up by the t-shirt being pulled over my head. "Just don't expect me to enjoy it."

Krycek eased me gently down onto the bed so that I was sitting on the edge and then went down on his knees in front of me like someone about to propose. The man was full of surprises. "Hey, you weren't listening. I said you are going to enjoy this."

"Dream on, Krycek."

A full mouth planted itself on my right nipple, making me gasp out. Well, so much for bravado.

"Just close your eyes," Krycek whispered seductively, "and pretend I'm the one you really want. Let me pretend to be Fraser for you."

If Krycek's teeth hadn't latched round my left nipple, I'd have pushed him away in disgust. "What the fuck are you sayin', Krycek? I don't want Fraser and I don't want —" The mixture of pain and pleasure reduced my little speech to a groan. Jesus, I was beginning to sound like one of the leads in a cheap porno movie. I wondered for the second time that day what was happening to me. How much of this was I doing for Fraser? How much of it was I doing for myself because Krycek had woken needs I hadn't known I had?

I wasn't stupid, neither was I totally unaware of how my subconscious had been screwing around lately, presenting me with images and fantasies that could make my hair curl. But I'd put it down to natural causes: loneliness and lack of sex. After working for so long on my own, I'd been given the Mountie as a partner, more or less at the same time as my marriage had broken up. I didn't make friends easily but Fraser had become a friend. The best I'd ever had. Nothing strange about investing a few feelings in the man. I'd been certain there was nothing abnormal about it. Even homosexual men were prone to the occasional fantasy about women, so why shouldn't it work the other way round?

My only real surprise was that Krycek had seen straight through me to the emotions underneath. When I'd thought they were safely tucked out of sight, they'd been on show all along, like a badly disguised wire.

Time to admit to myself that I was in trouble, physically and emotionally.

My body was responding to another male as if it belonged to a sex starved teenager, while my emotions were far away, across town, with a man sleeping in long johns, a wolf by his side...

Apparently there was some damn river in Greek mythology that could wash away the past. Waters of oblivion. Only Fraser could come up with stuff like that.

Well, they weren't running through my shower, that was for sure. In fact, the more I scrubbed at my skin, the more memories seemed to haunt me, each one worse than the other. Things I'd done, things I'd had done to me. Pity I couldn't lay the blame at Krycek's feet but conscience and memory wouldn't let me. Krycek had led all right, but I needn't have followed. I'd behaved like a $20 whore, it was as simple as that. Krycek could have been satisfied with a taste, I needn't have given the man the whole damn five course meal, with coffee and petits fours.

"Let me pretend to be Fraser for you..."

A passport to heaven. Krycek had known exactly the right button to push. He seemed to know as well as I did it was the only way I'd be able to have the Mountie. Beautiful, innocent, untouchable Fraser.

I was hot with shame. It had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. What if Fraser ever found out what I'd done with Krycek? Goodbye partnership. Goodbye Ray. And even if the Mountie never knew, I would, I'd never be able to forget. How was I going to be able to face Fraser in the morning?

I sank down to the floor of the shower. I'd soaped my back and slid slowly down the tiled wall. Everything and nothing had changed. For the sake of having sex with a travesty of Fraser, I'd ruined the most important friendship I'd ever had.

I'd got nothing but questionable immunity for the Mountie.

Didn't want to think about what I'd lost in return. I closed my eyes.

Couldn't feel the tears on my cheeks. The shower washed them away. Waters of oblivion.

* * *

"Ray, what do homosexual spiders do?"

I wasn't normally given to telling jokes but my friend seemed so unhappy that morning I felt I should try something to make him smile. Ray had slunk in late like a dog expecting a whipping. It seemed that last night's tryst had not gone well for him. His eyes were red rimmed, even a little swollen, although there were marks on his neck that spoke of passion. It was all very puzzling but since everything about Ray's demeanour was saying "Don't mention it", I didn't. For the moment.

"I already heard that one, Fraser." Ray wasn't looking at me, engrossed in a file on his desk. He squirmed a little in his chair, as if he was uncomfortable. "I'm surprised you even understand it."

"Of course I understand it, Ray. I'm not a complete ignoramus in these matters." I intended this comment as a prelude to further understanding between us, opening the door on the subject, so to speak, but it only seemed to antagonise Ray further.

"Oh, of course," he mimicked angrily. "Mr Man Of The World. Constable Been There Done That Got The T-shirt Fraser!"

"Ray."

"Of course you know what homosexual spiders do!"

"Ray!"

"Bet you could even tell a homosexual spider a thing or two!"

"RAY!"

"WHAT?!"

"You're shouting!"

"I know I'm shouting, Fraser!"

"But, why?"

"Because it's rich, that's why! I'm not a complete ignoramus! And this from the man who thinks people don't have sex, they have lung conditions!"

Ashamed, I said at once, "I'm so sorry about last night, Ray."

"Not nearly so sorry as I am!" All at once Ray seemed to deflate, all the aggression gone like storm clouds on a windy day. He ran his hands over his head to rest on the back of his neck in a familiar gesture of frustration, revealing bare wrists that made my stomach clench. What on earth had happened to Ray last night? My partner caught me staring, and in a movement of guilt and shame, thrust his arms down by his sides. We looked at each other in awkward silence. When the phone rang, we both reached out for it as a welcome diversion and our hands collided. Ray pulled his away as if he'd burnt himself on my skin.

It was Welsh. "Ah, Constable Fraser. You're wanted upstairs in Personnel. Internal Affairs want to talk to you about Almazov. Now it's your turn."

I looked across the desk at Ray. "My turn, sir?"

"Well, you weren't here yesterday evening so they saw Vecchio first."

"I see. Right. Thank you, Lieutenant." That could explain the fact that Ray had stormed out of the place. And perhaps it was the subject of last night's peculiar conversation with Turnbull. I replaced the receiver.

Kowalski was looking at me warily. "What was that all about?"

I reached for my stetson. "Ray, why didn't you tell me Internal Affairs had seen you yesterday?"

He colored. "I was gonna tell you, Fraser, but you got me all sidetracked with the spiders and the not bein' an ignoramus." He glanced down at the phone. "Who was that?"

"Welsh. Internal Affairs want to see me." I turned to go, hurt that Ray would keep something from me but a surprisingly strong hand grabbed my arm.

"No! They can't! He promised me—You can't go, Fraser!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ray, of course I must go. I'm most anxious to speak on your behalf." I set off across the squad room, adjusting my stetson to the correct angle.

Ray was right by my side. "Look, Fraser, don't worry about my behalf. My behalf will be just fine without you speakin' for it. Don't go, Fraser, whatever you do, don't go." He was like a man trying to talk me out of jumping into a pit full of alligators. "I'll say you're sick or somethin'."

"Ray, I don't wish to be critical but I think you're overreacting to this situation." I pushed through the swing doors, with Ray almost hanging onto my jacket.

"Fraser, listen to me. You've no idea what yer lettin' yerself in for."

I summoned the elevator. "Yes, I have, Ray. I've been interviewed before by Internal Affairs, as you know."

"Not by this guy, you haven't. This guy gives new meanin' to the term Internal Affairs."

"What do you mean?"

"Okay. Look, Fraser, I can see yer determined to go. Just do me a favour, will you, and don't trust him any further than you can spit at him."

The elevator doors swung open to reveal an unhappy looking man clutching an enormous poodle. He walked out and I strode in. "I would never spit at anyone, Ray. Too much risk of droplet infection."

Kowalski's shoulders drooped in despair. "Don't trust him, Fraser," he repeated helplessly. The elevator doors closed.

I was assuming Internal Affairs were interested in Almazov's demise. I played the scene over in my mind where Ray had punched the man in self defence, assembling details. I wanted to be absolutely sure no blame was attributed to my partner.

Ray's obvious distress had troubled me but, for the moment, I had to make sure that the truth was told and my partner's statement backed up on all points. It was clear to me that this was my first priority. When that was completed, I'd talk to Ray, preferably over a quiet lunch together.

"Name?"

"Constable Benton Fraser RCMP."

The receptionist in Personnel looked up at me and smiled. She was a personable young lady with blond hair and blue eyes the same color as Ray's. "Oh good morning, Constable Fraser. You'll be interviewed in Room 2. Let me show you the way."

"Why thank you kindly."

"Would you like a cup of coffee or anything?" She was certainly a helpful young woman.

"No thank you. But you're very kind."

She knocked at the door of Room 2 and opened it for me with a flourish. "If there's anything you need, just let me know."

I touched my hat. "Thank you kindly."

Walking into the room, I had the distinct impression that the man waiting for me was not what he seemed. 'Don't trust him.' It would be wise to tread cautiously. I adopted my most innocent expression.

"Constable Fraser. I'm Brian Connor." A dangerously attractive man. The handshake firm but held perhaps a little too long. "Are you trying to make out with our receptionist?"

That voice. 'Get rid of him.' The same man. It made no sense at all. Why would an IA official visit the home of an officer he'd interviewed only a short time previously? Highly irregular and unprofessional. I realised that I'd been staring at Connor without replying to his question. "Oh no, sir. Not at all."

"Not your type, perhaps." It wasn't a question, it sounded like a statement. Connor indicated for me to be seated.

The poster on the opposite wall hit me like a swipe from an angry bear. The skydivers! They weren't engaged in any obvious homosexual act, in fact they were barely touching one another. Unless it had simply been word association and the man sitting underneath the poster...

"Odd what a source of fascination that poster seems to be," Connor said, giving it a brief uninterested glance over his shoulder. "Can't see it myself."

I cleared my throat and turned my attention to Connor. "I expect it's the evocation of altitude, the sense of danger."

"Do you think so," Connor said flatly. "Constable Fraser, I won't take up too much of your valuable time. I've called you up here to give you some advice."

"Advice, sir?" 'Don't trust him.'

"Apparently you logged into the Ottawa RCMP database control to enable you to identify your John Doe as Almazov. Although this is a highly commendable act of initiative on your part, maybe you'd think to get some permission from your superior before you do it again. The FBI had put a block on Almazov for good reason, Constable. You got one or two guys in the Agency for Federal Security nursing peptic ulcers."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. I was only —"

"Your partner's explained to me all the good reasons you had for doing it."

"Right."

"And they're not good enough."

"Understood, sir. It won't happen again." I scratched my forehead lightly with my thumbnail. "I hope it was made clear that Detective Vecchio had nothing to do with —"

Connor gave me a malevolent smile. "Oh, it's been made very clear to me, Constable. You and Vecchio appear to be joined at the hip. He's protecting you, you're protecting him. What's going on between you two or is that an indelicate question?"

I was beginning to understand my partner's concern. "Between us, sir?" I asked innocently.

Connor gave his fingernails a brief examination. His fastidiousness was too studied. I was certain the man didn't belong behind a desk. "Do you know why Vecchio's marriage failed, Constable?"

"This hardly seems to be an appropriate line of enquiry— "

"Forget it, Constable Fraser." Connor gave a sly wink. "It'll be our little secret."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I fail to understand —"

Connor checked his watch meaningfully. "Constable, it's been a pleasure but all good things must end. I have a plane to catch. Thanks for dropping by so promptly." 

* * *

It was hard to recall a more peculiar conversation, even if I counted the ones I'd had with my father or Turnbull. In fact, it wasn't easy to remember the last time anyone had opened their mouth and made much sense at all.

And it didn't help that Ray seemed to have disappeared into thin air. No-one knew where he'd gone, not even Francesca, the eyes and ears of the 27th. This in itself was no great cause for concern— Ray had a talent for disappearing when he wanted to. It was the fact that he wanted to that disturbed me.

Acting on an impulse—Ray might even have called it instinct—I paid a visit to the morgue. I found Mort reclining on one of his slabs, sipping vodka from a test tube. He was singing, waving his free hand around in time to an imaginary orchestra. On the next slab, a man who might have been hit by a truck was waiting for attention. He, at any rate, had all the time in the world.

"Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore!"

I smiled in recognition. "Ah, Tosca."

"Why, Constable Fraser, this is a pleasant surprise. I am polishing up my Puccini, is that the right expression? I go to see Tosca tonight." He waved in the direction of his desk where a score of the opera lay open at Act III. "I like to prepare myself for a such a sublime experience."

"Indeed." I understood completely. "Mort, if I may trouble you for a moment, have you seen Ray?"

Mort took a discreet sip of vodka. "It is strange that you should ask me that because I have never known Ray come down here on his own and this morning he did. About a half an hour ago." Mort laughed to himself, making the level of vodka dance about in the test tube. "He wanted to know if Mr Almazov had had any visitors. I told him it is extremely rare for any of my clients to receive visitors. My clients are a little beyond conversation and quite often they do not even smell so good. Ray did not seem to find this very amusing."

"And did he?"

Mort looked confused. "Did he what?"

"Did Mr Almazov have any visitors?"

"Well, that is another strange thing because yes he did. Yesterday evening. An officer from Internal Affairs apparently. Though it is very odd for anyone from Internal Affairs to ever come down here."

"Was he about six foot tall? Dark cropped hair?"

"That is him, yes. Very polite. He too loves Tosca, so he said." Mort's eyes narrowed. "So do you think this is a new trend, Constable Fraser? Visiting the dead and the frozen? I would like to be prepared if it is. Perhaps I should have a waiting area outside with some comfortable chairs, an iced water dispenser and some magazines."

"I really don't think that will prove to be necessary, Mort."

"Well, that is a relief because you know how tight the hospitality budget is."

Vissi d'arte. Of course! I felt a rush of adrenalin, the excitement of finally discovering a clear trail. "Mort, would you mind if I had a glance through your score?"

He lay back again on the slab. "Be my guest, Constable Fraser."

Flicking through the pages, I found the passage I wanted. The evil baron Scarpia has imprisoned and tortured Tosca's lover Mario. He invites her to his chambers and offers her a bargain: Mario's life in exchange for Tosca's favors.

Before she arrives, he sings:

'Because she loves her Mario

She will surrender to my wishes

The anguish of great loves is the greatest

A violent conquest has more flavor than soft consent.'

My stomach clenched again. I thought of the marks on Ray's wrists, the bites on his neck, the way he'd said "He promised me." Not that I was equating myself with Mario in this situation. That would obviously be absurd. But I was certain I'd been used as a tool by Connor, in the same way that Scarpio had used Mario to have his way with Tosca.

Reading through the score, I substituted Connor for Scarpia, Ray for Tosca.

'Scarpia: How I've waited for this moment! When you glared at me with hate it inflamed my desire!

Tosca: I hate you, you're depraved, vile!

Scarpia: What does it matter? Aching with hate or aching with love!'

I scanned the pages quickly. I was beginning to realise it was imperative I find Ray. For Tosca avenges herself and Mario by murdering Scarpio. 

* * *

"I've waited a long time for this, Ray."

"Jesus Christ, just get on with it, will ya? I can't take much more of this!"

Krycek was lying beside me on the bed fully clothed. I was naked. Vulnerable. Shivering, but not from cold. Tortured by the man's continual attentions to my body. "I didn't realise you were enjoying this so very much."

"You shit," I groaned.

"I think," Krycek said, kissing the tip of my erection with devastating accuracy, "that we're forgetting just who's in charge around here. I'm the big butch Mountie, remember? You're my slender but undeniably gorgeous bottom."

"Krycek, you must be way overdue for your next dose of Thorazine."

"Tsk, tsk. I detect a definite note of insubordination. Perhaps it's time for a little discipline." He ran the edge of a handcuff lightly across my skin, over my chest. The difference in temperature between my skin and the steel was sufficient to register as pain. "I believe a Mountie would know all about discipline, don't you, Ray?"

I shuddered. A desire ran through me so dark it almost scared me to death. Where had it been hiding all this time that it had to come out now and ambush me? To cover up my confusion, I ground out, "Forget medication. You should be in a strait jacket."

Krycek was lifting my wrists above my head, whispering seductively into my ear. "Come on, let's apply ourselves, hasn't there been one moment with Fraser when you've thought about it?"

Though I was trying hard to think only about death and taxes and hungry turtles, my mind went straight to the time Fraser had put me under house arrest. 'Ray, I'm afraid that I have no option.' Fraser's fingers on my wrists, the handcuffs clicking cool and hard on my skin. 'By the power that is vested in me by the Government of Canada...' I blushed and shook my head.

"Yes, I knew it! Ray, I thought I wanted you for your body but now I see it's for your mind as well. Hold that thought. This could be a lot of fun."

I struggled against Krycek's grip. Didn't want to admit to myself how much I liked the feeling of being pinned down. "The only fun I'll have is seeing you behind bars."

"Well, okay, we can play jailors and prisoners later if you like but right now I have my heart set on being the Mountie."

"Jesus Christ!"

"No, that wouldn't be much fun at all. I'm not into pain."

Krycek gave me one of his trademark kisses, a sensation that fused every damn neuron in my nervous system, leaving them in little smoking heaps. Where the hell had he learnt to kiss like that and could I arrest him for it later? I felt the last few resistence fighters in my brain pack their bags and climb out the window. I let Krycek turn me over onto my front, a sure sign in itself that I'd gone temporarily insane.

Time to face facts. I was hopelessly lost, in a world of pleasure where I could come any moment, pressed into the mattress under the body of a man who could be a Russian spy, who was certainly a renegade FBI agent and who might kill me when he'd been satisfied. A man who must have some advanced qualification in lovemaking and who might also be totally insane. And, even taking all this into account, if I applied myself as Krycek suggested, yes, I could imagine him being Fraser, the smell of his leather jacket and the weight of his body being enough for my fevered brain to flesh out a fantasy Mountie. A Mountie who'd lost his toujours la politesse thing. A Fraser who was intent on giving me mind-blowing rollercoaster sex, with all the accompanying thrills and spills. It was so tempting. To be able to moan Fraser's name out loud. Give my body to him. Having him hard and dangerous and fully clothed against my bare skin. Yes, yes, yes.

"Fraser," I whispered experimentally. Waiting for Krycek to poke fun or laugh or phone for a doctor.

The man did none of those things. He breathed, "Hold still, Ray," hotly into my ear. It didn't sound anything like Fraser but I gave him 9 out of 10 for effort. It would certainly do. I held still. Now I knew for certain I was certifiable. What possible excuse did I have for letting this man handcuff me to my own bed? Krycek had put his gun away some time ago.

"Fraser." I experimented again, groaning the name out this time. I could feel Fraser's fingers round my wrists.' ...I am placing you under arrest. You have the right to remain silent.' Though remining silent didn't seem very likely under the present circumstances.

Krycek secured the handcuffs efficiently to the headboard. I pulled on them, testing the sensation. I was committed, trapped, held in place. Oh this was so damned kinky. Oughta be a law. It was wicked. It was scary.

"Now then, Ray, this is going to be a learning experience for you. It's called relinquishing control. You've just given up all your control over this situation and put it in my hands."

Holy shit, the man even lectured like Fraser. "For pity's sake, just get on with it!"

"What did I just say?"

Strong fingers latched themselves round my balls and dug into them hard. I cried out in pain. "Fraser wouldn't do that," I complained. "Fraser wouldn't hurt me!" A wave of panic broke over me. There was nothing I could do to defend myself.

Krycek sighed heavily. "Stop criticising my performance. Just concentrate on staying in your character, I'll worry about mine."

I looked at him over my shoulder. "But I am in character! I'm always naggin' Fraser about somethin', that's me, that's my thing!"

"Well maybe he's just had about enough of your mouth and he's decided to teach you a lesson, ever think of that? Good grief, I ad no idea this fantasy would be such hard work."

I was trembling with fear and unfulfilled lust. If my cock didn't get some proper attention in a moment, I'd explode all over the bedroom with frustration. "Well don't trouble on my account, I'd hate to put you out!"

There was an ominous silence. I wondered if Krycek was thinking of leaving. I wasn't sure whether to feel relief or panic when I heard the sound of jeans being unzipped behind me. We were still in business. "Okay, so like I was saying, keep your mouth shut and don't argue."

"Fraser wouldn't —"

"Ray?!"

"Sorry. Okay."

"Finally I think we're getting the idea."

The ability to argue was no longer an option anyway. Krycek licked down my spine from neck to butt. I was deprived of speech. Could no longer put one thought in front of the other. My cock was so rock hard that I could picture it drilling a hole through the mattress and out the other side. A lubricated, thrusting finger pushed inside me. I cried out, shameless. God, no-one had ever done that to me. I'd only let the Mountie, only the Mountie. I started humping the mattress enthusiastically but two strong hands grabbed me by the hips and lifted me onto my knees. My cock thrust uselessly at the air. Bastard.

Before I could start resenting the change in circumstances, Krycek's finger was back. The main source of pleasure centred there, rather than in my erection. Oh fantastic, really fantastic. So easy to imagine the finger belonging to Fraser, strong, gentle, building hot white pleasure that spread through the lower part of my body. I pushed against it blissfully, sluttishly, Krycek's jacket brushing against my skin.

"Ray!"

I was about to go out of my mind. "Fraser! Jesus, Fraser, I want you!"

And not even the pain of Krycek's entry, sudden and victorious, brought me to my senses. Not even the man's violent, hungry thrusts. I was riding a tidal wave of lust, way out of control, unaware of how I was thrashing around, the handcuffs cutting into my skin.

Somewhere a tiny part of my mind was telling me that this wasn't what I wanted from Fraser at all.

But I wasn't listening to it.

* * *

Memories.

Or airport coffee.

Hard to tell which of them was more indigestible.

If only I was earning royalties from the number of times I'd repeated the whole shameful scene in my head. I could retire to somewhere like Bermuda, floating around in a pool with a vodka and lemon on my stomach.

I swallowed down the rest of the coffee like it was a lesson that had to be learnt. Threw the empty plastic cup into a trash can. For a moment, I was back in Personnel, throwing my gum away.

Seemed like an age since the one o'clock flight to JFK had been announced. Most of the passengers had boarded already.

I'd shown my teeth to the blonde in Personnel and she'd cracked. Told me Connor/Krycek had left to catch a plane. Said she didn't know the destination. I was making the shrewd guess that he'd take the next flight to JFK and on from there to Russia. The scumbag must be travelling under some other name because neither Krycek or Connor were on the passenger list. Figured though. A guy like Krycek would be used to hiding his tracks. Even before he made them.

I still couldn't believe he'd cheated on our deal. Every time I thought about it, the blood sizzled in my brain. I had a neat little Clint Eastwood-type scenario going where I'd apprehend him just as he was about to step on the plane. I'd force him at gun point to return with me to the 27th, where I'd make him fix the trouble he'd dumped Fraser into. Shame my poncho was hanging on the back of the bedroom door. Still, I had the stubble going for me. And that was pretty much all Clint Eastwood and I had in common.

Krycek was really late. Probably one of the attributes he'd picked up at spy school. How To Turn Up At The Last Minute And Give Everyone An Ulcer. Along with Messing With People's Heads, Intermediate and Advanced.

A couple of guys caught my eye, a little to my right. They were standing close to each other, real close, just looking into each other's eyes. I don't know why but I felt embarrassed for a moment and looked away. No-one else seemed to be taking any notice of them, too busy going somewhere or arriving. When I looked back, I saw them kissing, the briefest of kisses but it gave my system a jolt. I wanted to ask them what it's like being a fruit, do you have to do it full-time or is it okay just putting in some part-time hours? What were the conditions like? Did you always feel this lonely and dirty? Or is it like an ache you get used to so you hardly know it's there?

Pulling myself out of my little reverie, I had a glimpse of black leather jacket and jeans, walking nice and cosy with an air hostess. Jesus, the guy was probably travelling first class as well. Some people have all the luck. I reached for my gun and started to move forward until red serge suddenly hove into view, blocking my way.

"Fraser! What the fu— what are you doing here?" Before I could stop him, he'd taken my gun, tucking it inside his jacket.

"This isn't the answer, Ray. Remember what I told you about revenge being a wild kind of justice?"

I felt like an actor who'd found himself in the wrong play. "Revenge? What are you talkin' about? Gimme back my gun. I'm tryin' to arrest the creep."

He looked surprised at this. "On what grounds?"

"On the grounds that he'll have my gun diggin' into his temple. It'll do til I can think up somethin' better." I peered over Fraser's shoulder. Krycek had disappeared. Quel surprise. "Godammit, Fraser, get out of my way."

"What are you planning to do with him, Ray?" I hadn't realised how big Fraser could make himself when he wanted. He was taking on the dimensions of the Incredible Hulk.

"Maybe a bullet in the brain. Maybe poison in his coffee. Maybe slow strangulation, I dunno." Anger was turning me unreasonable, like a cornered animal. "I was keepin' my options open."

"Let him go, Ray. Justice will catch up with him eventually."

"Oh yeah. Like the cavalry'll be turnin' up any moment now to surround the plane. Jesus, Fraser, how can you be so stupid? Unless we get that creep back to the 27th, there'll be no way of droppin' those charges against you."

"Dropping charges? What are you talking about, Ray?"

"The disciplinary hearing!"

"I still don't know what you mean."

So help me, I was going to have to pop him one if he didn't stop looking so bewildered. "The creep called you in to see him, right? Told you he was going to recommend a disciplinary hearing. Concerning you hackin' into the RCMP database."

"No, Ray, that's not what happened at all."

"It's not?" Yep, I was definitely in the wrong play. Maybe even the wrong planet. I began to calculate my chances of getting out of the situation without being awarded prize bozo of the year. They didn't look good.

Fraser had adopted the tone he used for talking crazy people off window ledges and such like occasions. "He just advised me not to do it again."

"Advised you?"

"And suggested that I may have given one or two members of the Agency for Federal Security ulcers."

"Suggested?" It sounded like a regular teddy bears' picnic. Maybe they'd had tea together, swapped snow anecdotes. 'Shoulda seen the snow last year in Moscow. The conditions were so terrible even the snowmen went on strike.' 'Snow? You call that snow? Back where I come from, that's just a dusting of icing sugar.' Jesus. Meanwhile yours truly had been cooking up a nice little melodrama like a stray from a Greek chorus. Godammit, there it goes again. I swear my mind's being improved.

One thing was for sure. For reasons best known to himself, Krycek hadn't told Fraser about what happened between us. About Basic Instinct in handcuffs. Otherwise the Mountie wouldn't be standing here talking to me. He'd be hightailing it back to Canada faster than you could say snowmobile parts.

Fraser was scrutinising me carefully. From the expression on his face, I could have been the human equivalent of an unstable nuclear device. Did he lay awake nights wondering what he'd done to deserve being partnered with me? "I expect, Ray, that you've come to the conclusion, as I have, that Connor is a Russian spy."

Now he was trying to humor me, like I wasn't the entirely clueless geek I appeared to be. "Krycek. His real name is Alex Krycek. And do not try to make me feel better, Fraser, it only makes it worse."

"Understood." He relaxed a little. "Anyway, Russian spy or not, we don't have sufficient grounds at the present moment to detain him. How about lunch? It's on me."

Now that I could deal with. "Well, okay," I said begrudgingly.

He handed me back my gun. 

* * *

**PART THREE**

I ordered our meal in Cantonese. The Chinese who ran Ray's favorite restaurant in East Cedar Street were from Hong Kong and Mandarin would have been unfamiliar to them.

I always enjoyed time out with Ray. It was confirmation that he wanted to be with me as a friend, as well as a partner. That for some reason, although at times I could get on his nerves, he enjoyed being with me. I didn't want to look into that reason too closely but it seemed to me that he needed me in some way. Sometimes I felt like a yardstick by which he could evaluate himself. "Do you think I'm losin' my hair, Fraser?" "Fraser, do you find me attractive?" It had been a pity he'd asked me to pretend I was a women when he'd wanted the answer to that question. Sometimes I felt like his own personal punchbag. "So help me, Fraser, I'm gonna pop you one." But the need was always there, swimming around just beneath the cool city guy surface.

I watched my partner from across the table. He was more than usually restless, his eyes constantly coming back to me and then shying away. He drank down his Budweiser and then ordered another. He rearranged his knife and fork, studied his table mat and then went back to the menu.

All I could see was his shiny blond head over the top of the menu. "Are you all right, Ray?"

He barely looked up. "Yeah, I'm fine, Fraser. I'm just hungry, that's all."

Ray was a veritable bundle of nervous energy, always ready to eat, and after the traumatic events of the past 12 hours, I imagined he'd burnt sufficient energy to keep the entire city of Chicago going for several days. "Ah. Well, that's a good sign."

"It's not a sign, Fraser, it's a biological fact. I haven't eaten in about 24 hours. My stomach's empty so I feel hungry."

"Didn't you have any supper last night?"

"There you go again, doin' that Mother Hen thing."

"I'm sorry."

We lapsed into an uneasy silence. I was painfully aware of what he'd done to save me from a disciplinary hearing. Though he'd risked his life for me in the past, sacrificing himself to Krycek must have seemed— to a man like Ray— a far higher cost, threatening the tough guy persona he took such pains to maintain. I had no idea how I could ever repay such a price.

When our meal arrived, I waited for Ray to launch into the Peking Duck with his usual ferocity but he appeared to be more interested in the bottom of his empty plate than the food. A pattern of lotus blossom was keeping him occupied. He followed the shape of the petals with his fork. It was a sad sight to see in a man so fond of his food.

I had to do something. I longed to reach out and touch him, to tell him everything would be all right. Instead, I decided to confess that I knew exactly what had happened. Maybe then he would be able to talk about it and relieve his torment.

"Ray," I began tentatively, "I was talking to Mort this morning about Tosca."

He barely looked up at me. "This another one of your relatives, Fraser?" He sounded unbearably tired.

"No, it's the eponymous heroine of an opera who— "

"Epony —what the hell is that, Fraser? What kind of word is that? Are you still talkin' in Chinese?"

This wasn't going to be easy. Ray was just this side of belligerent. "It means that the opera was named after her."

"Sometimes you make about as much sense in Canadian as Chinese, Fraser, you know that?"

I carried on regardless. We had far more important things to discuss. "Tosca's lover, Mario, is imprisoned for rebel activities against the state. The Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia, summons Tosca to his chambers. He offers her a terrible bargain: if she'll have sex with him, he'll pardon Mario and set him free."

The lotus blossom no longer occupied Ray's attention. He was searching my eyes suspiciously. If I'd shown any reluctance to meet his stare, I'm sure he would have left the place at once. "Is there a point to that story?" he muttered, so softly I almost missed the words.

"I think you realise the point of it, Ray. It was Tosca that helped me realise what had gone on between you and Krycek."

My partner's eyes flashed defiantly at me. "He told you, didn't he? When he called you up to see him."

"No, he didn't, Ray. I pieced it all together. Your phone call to Turnbull, my phone call to you. I heard him, Ray. I heard Krycek whispering in the background. Then there were the marks on your wrists the following morning and the way you said, 'He promised me.' It was Tosca, though, that made all the pieces fit."

Ray's color was gradually heightening. It could have been shame or anger or the temperature of the hot plate underneath the Peking Duck.

"Well, jiggle-di-jig and congratulations, Fraser! Now you know all the sordid and disgustin' details about last night. When will you be packin' up your bedroll and headin' back with Dief for the pure clean air of Freezerland?" Ray gathered up his napkin and tossed it on the table as if he was laying down a challenge.

As luck would have it, a large family of Chinese were occupying the next door table, fighting over which fortune cookie belonged to whom. Our conversation was drowned out by the general cacophany.

"Why on earth should I want to go back home at this particular moment, Ray? What kind of man would leave his partner at exactly the time he needs him most, when he's been blackmailed and abused? Good heavens, Ray, I'm the reason it happened in the first place, aren't I?"

Ray put up both hands in protest. "No, Fraser, I cannot let you think that! I am not the heroine of an opera. I am not the tragic victim of circumstance. I'm nothin' but a lousy opportunist, takin' the chance to grab one or two illicit little thrills. I'm a filthy slut, Fraser, I wanted it to happen and I enjoyed every damn moment of it!"

I watched in open mouthed astonishment as Ray threw down a bill and hurried out of the restaurant. Never let it be said that eating out with him was dull.

Had I been dreaming? Had I just heard Ray Kowalski, torch bearer to Stella, driver of the GTO, lover of women, tough street-wise jumping Bogarde all over you cop, say that he'd enjoyed having sex with another man? The same Ray Kowalski who'd grown very defensive when I'd simply given him the word closet in a word association test? The man who'd once shouted hysterically at me to stop touching his inner thigh?

It seemed impossible but it had happened and if I sat around with my mouth drooping open for very much longer, apart from swallowing a few flies, I could lose what I considered to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

I knew that, in spite of my infamous affair with Victoria, Ray thought of me as an innocent, an untouchable, someone who may not even realise what went on between a man and a woman, let alone the endless variations thereon. And there had been no necessity up until now to disabuse him of this idea.

Damping down a heady sense of elation, I grabbed my stetson and ran out onto the street.

* * *

When I was in trouble as a kid, I used to walk the streets, pretending to be Steve McQueen. I'd conjure up a favorite scenario from one of his movies and magic myself into it. With his physique, his good looks and a gun on my hip, the world was a better place.

Automatically, I started walking. Down East Cedar to Lakeshore. I was in trouble again though Steve McQueen couldn't help me any more. I'd lost the necessary ability to suspend belief. McQueen would never have fucked up in the restaurant the way I had. McQueen was a cool dude. If he'd have wanted the Mountie, he'd have got him. Somehow. Though I'd be interested in how even my hero could have talked himself out of the mess I was in.

I knew I shouldn't have walked out on Fraser like that. Knew I should've tried to explain. But what was there to explain that wouldn't make things worse? Those big blue eyes, they cut me up inside. He was transparent, clear as a lake back in the wilderness he came from, unpolluted, deep blue, no shit in the way so you could see right down to the bottom. Me, I was more like Lake Michigan, so damn murky you couldn't see below the surface and even that was covered in crap.

"Ray!"

I put my head down and walked faster. Jesus, I was hallucinating, imagining I could hear his voice. As if he'd ever want to talk to me again. I shoved my hands deep into my jacket pockets. Not only was I a faggot, I was turning out to be a crazy faggot.

"Ray!" The hallucination caught up with me and started walking alongside. When it said "May I join you?", I finally had to accept it was real.

"Fraser." I stopped walking. Seeing as it was him I was trying to avoid, perambulation was merely so much wasted energy. "What on God's earth do you want?"

"I was wondering," he said, looking into my eyes as if he still liked what was in there, "if you could help me understand something."

I shifted from one leg to the other impatiently, my hands still crammed into my pockets like a kid who'd stolen some candy. "Certainly, Fraser. What would you like to understand? The theory of critical mass? Why Frannie applies more lipstick when you're around?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," he continued, ignoring my acidity, "but it seems to me that you're troubled more by the fact that you enjoyed sex with Krycek than having been coerced into it in the first place."

Right on the button, Fraser. I wasn't sure what he meant by that c-word but the rest of the picture was accurate enough. I started walking again. It was easier to stare at a moving pavement than those baby blues. I couldn't figure out why he still wanted to have anything to do with me. He knew now that I'd got into some pretty kinky sex with Krycek. Why wasn't he hightailing it back to the Consulate, packing his stuff, writing to the Queen about depraved American morals? "You should have a notice up like Charlie Brown. 'The psychiatrist is in.' " My way of telling him he was absolutely right. Maybe now he'd go and leave me to get suicidally depressed in peace.

"Why is it," he asked, still keeping abreast of me, seemingly addressing the world at large, "that American society brings up its individuals to be so repressed?"

I looked across at him briefly. "Hey, who's repressed? I'm not repressed."

"Really?" he challenged. "If Krycek had been a woman, you'd be feeling entirely different about the situation. But since you deviated from what America considers to be the sexual norm, you're acting as if there's something dreadfully wrong with you. So you had sex with a man and loved it, so what? Good for you!"

A woman walking in front of us turned her head and gave Fraser what could only be described as the evil eye. I applied the brakes again and we came to an abrupt halt. "Will you keep yer voice down, Fraser!" I couldn't believe he was talking this way. Had he knocked back a bottle of Chinese rice wine before coming outside?

"See?" he said. "Repressed. You're repressed."

I was not only repressed, I was furious. "I suppose, Mr Clean As A Whistle Mountie, you think it's okay for two men to have sex!"

"Yes, Ray, I do. In Canada, as you know, gays have equal rights."

"I knew that," I snapped, though of course I hadn't had the slightest clue. "Course I knew that!" My brain was working furiously, figuring out how much ground it had won, how much it had lost and was this really the answer to all my dreams and if it was, why was I so angry about it? Some serious backpedalling was called for. "He handcuffed me!" I shouted. I couldn't quite get my voice under control. I think I was suffering from symptoms of shock.

"I see," Fraser nodded understandingly. "So are you saying that it's bondage you object to, rather than homosexual lovemaking?"

Hearing him use words like that was tantamount to someone swearing in church. I sniffed, trying hard to find my cool. "Yeah, that's what I'm sayin', Fraser! That is exactly what I'm sayin'!"

"Right. Well, I can understand that, Ray. Bondage isn't everyone's cup of tea. So, say, if a guy should ask you out —"

"I wouldn't turn him down on account of his sex! I am not repressed, not like some Americans, Fraser! I'm too cool to have to worry over stuff like sexual norms!"

"Understood." Fraser scratched his forehead with his thumbnail. "So would you like to come out with me tonite, Ray?"

Holy Mother of God! "Is this a date, Fraser?!" My voice was barely below a shout. It sounded more like a threat than a question.

"Yes, I believe that's what it is."

"Well, fine, you're on then! It's a date!"

"Good. I'll pick you up at 8 o'clock."

"Right! 8 o'clock! It's a date!" I was so confused, I started walking off again. This time, the Mountie let me go and headed off in the opposite direction.

Why did I feel more like a kid given a dare than a grown man invited out for an evening of romance?

* * *

"Good evening, Ray."

"Hi."

Standing on the steps of his apartment building, a blond James Dean, thoroughly insecure and unsure of himself, chewing gum as if he didn't have a care in the world. He'd changed into blue jeans and the dark blue Rawhide t-shirt that so perfectly complimented his eyes.

"I thought we could go for a walk as it's such a fine evening."

This clearly surprised him. "A walk? What do you think I am, Fraser? A dog?"

"No, I don't think you're a dog, Ray." I held his gaze. "I think you're one of the most handsome men I've met and it would give me great pleasure to be seen out in your company."

He looked at me for a moment as if I'd sprouted horns. "There's no need to go over the top, Fraser, we'll go for a walk."

We strolled round a five block circle. Ray thought I was exaggerating but it did give me enormous pleasure to walk out with him, to know that, like me, he was wanting more from our relationship than friendship. As we walked, I did all the talking, entertaining him with anecdotes about my relatives. Although Ray was wearing the usual long suffering expression he applied when listening to my stories, it seemed to me that he was the most beautiful creature in the world.

I'd been brought up on the motto All Good Things Come To He Who Waits. I'd waited for the adolescent bonds I'd shared with Innusiq to deepen into something more and he'd left with his parents for a neighboring village. I'd waited hopelessly for Victoria to change her ways, with disastrous results. And I'd waited patiently for my old partner, Ray Vecchio, to need me to be more than a friend to him. He never had. And it was too late now.

As far as I could see, waiting had done me little good. Ray Kowalksi was everything I wanted and I didn't intend to let him slip through my fingers. So I had acted with uncharacteristic haste, seizing the moment when he'd revealed himself to me. And here was my prize, the other half of myself that—if all went well— would at last make me whole, walking beside me, nervously silent, chewing gum relentlessly.

We arrived back at Ray's apartment building an hour and a half later. I was beginning to think Ray had lost the power of speech, when he said, as casually as he could, "Home sweet home. You wanna come up for a drink, Fraser?"

I was tempted, very tempted. I wanted to hold his hand, something I was unable to do out in the street. "Well, thank you for the invitation, Ray, but I think you should get to bed early. I don't suppose you slept well last night." And I said this, I hope, without the slightest hint of recrimination or jealousy in my voice.

He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. He looked bewildered. He tried again. "This is a date, Fraser? This is your idea of a date?"

"Well, I admit it didn't last very long, for the reason I've just given, but on the whole, yes."

Ray shook his head like someone clearing their ears after swimming underwater. "So for our next date, we go on a longer walk, right?"

I smiled with pleasure. "You'd like to go out on another date with me, Ray?"

He frowned. "Oddly, yes."

* * *

I woke up for the first time in years with a smile on my face. A big stupid smile. I'd had a date with the Mountie. And though it had been the weirdest thing on earth, it had still been a date. Even the fact that I was cuddling a pillow to myself like a lovesick female didn't spoil my mood. I couldn't believe my luck, couldn't believe Fraser wanted to date me. Couldn't get it into my head that he went along with that Canadian equal rights thing. It was all too good to be true.

It was Gene Kelly Singing in the Rain. It was West Side Story's Tonite. I was whirling round lamp posts. I could even have been running around the Swiss alps in an apron informing everyone that the hills were alive.

"Ray, have you just had major root canal surgery or has your doctor prescribed you Prozac?"

Jesus. I was sitting at my desk. How had that happened? I had no idea how I'd got there. I guessed that I must have driven to work but the morning so far had been a blur. I hoped I hadn't run over any old ladies or, worse, missed a stop sign.

Frannie was frowning down at me as if I might decide to rape her grandmother without warning.

"Hi, sister mine," I said, trying to focus properly, "what's up?"

"What's up?" She was waving her arms around as only Frannie can. "What's up is you. One moment you're screaming at me like I'm personally responsible for all your problems. And you seem to me to have plenty of them. Next thing I know, you're grinning at me like a maniac."

For a while, I'd been worried that Fraser might like Frannie more than me. Now I knew better, I was suddenly very fond of Frannie. I put my hand over my heart. "I'm really sorry, Frannie, that I shouted at you. I will make a big effort in future to be more pleasant."

She backed away from me the way people do in Hammer Horror films when they see an intolerably gruesome sight.

Fraser was working all day at the Consulate. I had until 8 o'clock that evening to get my mouth muscles under control.

"Hi."

"Hi yerself."

Fraser appeared to be having the same problems with his mouth. We stood on the Consulate steps, grinning inanely at each other. I caught Turnbull staring at us from out the window. For poise, I punched Fraser playfully in the chest. He punched me back, as usual unaware of his strength, sending me staggering back down the steps. If he hadn't caught me by the lapels of my jacket, I'd have probably cracked my skull open on the sidewalk. Turnbull looked as if he was going to be sick with laughter. I made a move back up the steps to go inside and punch him but Fraser firmly took my arm and started walking me up the street.

"Where we goin'?" I inquired. Any other time, I'd love to feel Fraser's arm in mine but this was too much like being plucked out of trouble by big brother.

"For a walk."

"Oh no we don't." I came to one of those resounding halts, one of those halts the Mountie was becoming more and more familiar with. "You chose what we were gonna do yesterday. Today, I choose."

He bowed graciously. "Very well, Ray. What would you like us to do?"

Took the Mountie to the movies. Figured that, for obvious reasons, he'd enjoy a film about snow. I'd spent the day and a little of the tax payers' money on tracking one down, "Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow", playing in an exclusive arts cinema off Mohawk. Still, nothing was too exclusive for my Mountie. I'd booked seats, picturing a romantic evening, secretly holding hands, sharing popcorn, maybe even a handkerchief.

Should've known better than to choose a snow film. Every damn snow scene prompted either a memory ("My Uncle Tiberius tried that once and nearly lost his toe, we still laugh about it") or a criticism ("If she went outside dressed like that, she'd be comatose within half an hour"). Folk round about us were shooshing like so many overheating boilers. I was trying to disappear into the upholstery of my seat. Finally the manager came up, leaning over us in a menacing fashion.

"Excuse me," he said to Fraser, "but I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I've had more complaints this one evening than I usually get in a year."

"I'm terribly sorry, sir," Fraser said, all polite as usual.

Me, I won't have anyone trying to kick my Mountie out of anywhere. "No, you listen, pal," I said, "my friend here's Canadian and Canadians like to talk their way around a soundtrack and if anyone's got any problem with that, they can answer to me."

"Holy Mother of God, detective, you can't even manage a gentle pursuit like going to the movies without getting into trouble."

I hung my head miserably, staring down at the floor with my one good eye. The other wouldn't open. Fraser had applied some foul smelling concoction that came from part of a moosehog's anatomy I'd rather not think about. "No, sir."

Welsh was doing a pretty good impersonation of an overheating boiler himself. "These charges that have been filed against you." He slapped the papers in his hand, making me jump nervously. "Disorderly conduct. Disturbing the peace. Impersonating a police officer." He glared at me. "I might even have that one framed and put on the wall of this office. Just what am I supposed to do with these?"

"Don't know, sir," I mumbled, then added hopefully, "Burn 'em?"

Welsh banged his fist down hard on the desk and I jumped even higher. "No, I am not going to burn them, detective! I am going to give you desk duty for a week and see how you like it!"

"But that's —"

"Don't but me, detective! Think yourself lucky I haven't suspended you for a week! Out! You smell weird as well, do you know that?" He pointed forcefully at the door. "Out!"

I waited anxiously for Ray beside his desk. When he came out of Welsh's office, I could tell by his face how the interview had gone.

"Bad, eh?" I said with commendable perspicacity.

Ray nodded and flung himself into his chair. "Bad, Fraser. I'm stuck behind my desk for a week."

"Oh dear." I'd been in Lieutenant Welsh's office beforehand, trying to explain that it had all been my fault but he seemed too cross with Ray to listen. I sat down opposite my partner. "I'm so sorry."

He shook his head. "Wasn't your fault, Fraser."

"Yes it was. My father was always telling me I talk too much."

Ray grinned across at me. "And my old man's always telling me I have a terrible temper. So we're quits, okay?"

I smiled back. Even with one eye almost closing up, Ray was still the most beautiful creature in the world. He stared back, his grin fading. "It's late," I commented, for something to say. My mouth was going dry. My partner was absolutely still, intent, his gaze travelling slowly down to my mouth and staying there. I licked my lips a little nervously. His Adams apple bobbed vigorously in reply.

We were alone in our corner of the office, except for a cleaner a few yards away who was making a desultory effort at mopping around the desks. Ray gave him a cursory glance, then turned his attention back to my mouth. He was exciting me almost as much as he would have done had he actually leant forward to kiss it.

Emboldened by Ray's example, I allowed myself to drink him in. His face had always fascinated me, being semi-androgonous, with enormous eyes, long lashes and delicate skin. The rest was dangerous and slightly hungover— severe bone structure, don't mess with me haircut and stubble, and a wildly sensuous mouth. The total mixture was lethal, especially applied as it was now, in complete concentration upon my own features. I realised I'd been holding my breath and took in a gulp of air. He smiled slightly, a secret knowing smile, nudging its way towards brutality. I would have given a great deal to know what he was thinking. Personally, I was working on the chances of attaining cerebral orgasm within the next five seconds. They seemed extraordinarily high.

Then, all at once, he spoke, or rather grated out the plea, "Take me home, Fraser."

* * *

"Cookies not to your liking?"

I was sitting on the sofa opposite him, balancing milk and cookies on my knees. He knew very well they were my favorite cookies, the little tease, but he was sprawling in his chair, leg dangling over the arm rest, blue denim leaving nothing to the imagination.

"They're fine, Ray. I'm just—not hungry."

"Maybe you're hungry for something else."

That lethal stare again. This was the complete opposite to what I'd anticipated. I'd visualised a slow, tender conquest, healing away the rather violent assault Krycek seemed to have made on Ray's body. But then I had to keep reminding myself that it had apparently been what Ray had wanted. He was not a delicate, traumatised victim. He was a sexy, experienced man who, judging by his behaviour, was asking to be -

"This milk," I said conversationally, "though delicious, is far less creamy than we're used to in Canada."

Ray rose slowly from his armchair and made his way over to me. "Canada sounds good, Fraser. Creamy milk, sexy guys."

Did he fully realise how irresistible he was? I could only assume he did. And that he was aware of the inevitable repercussions of his behaviour. He'd asked me to drive him home, it appeared, for the benefit of relaxing back in the passenger seat and staring at me. For half an hour, I had been the object of intense, erotic scrutiny and it had done little to improve my meagre driving skills. I was now wound up to such a pitch that I could descend on Ray at any time and kiss him unconscious.

He stopped just in front of me so that our feet were almost touching. I put my milk and cookies down on the side table. As staring was the order of the day, I stared back at the wonderful sight before me. Still tousled from the fight in the cinema, Ray's hair was sticking out in clumps, his t-shirt hanging out here and there over his belt. His slender hips were directly at eye level and it was impossible not to notice how his jeans were tenting impressively. He was tough, he was vulnerable, he was hungry, very hungry. He was my partner in every sense of the word, offering himself up to me. I was dizzy from the pleasure of it.

"Fraser." A call for water from a man dying of thirst. "Oh Fraser."

I rose from the sofa, sweeping him into my arms and we held onto each other as if we'd been parted for years. Which in a way I suppose we had.

Ray moaned my name again, his breath hot and moist on my neck. His body was slender and hard in my arms. His hands were travelling frantically over my back and shoulders as if he was afraid someone was going to take me away from him at any moment — I have no idea why, I wouldn't have left him for the Queen herself. I tried to slow him down a little by stroking his back but it only appeared to excite him further. He trembled under my touch. He reached for my face, cupping it in his hands, searching every feature, running long elegant fingers down my cheeks like a blind man learning the contours of a stranger's face.

Then, with a thistledown touch I hadn't thought him capable of, he brushed his lips over mine. He was so intense, so focussed, that just that brief contact sent a kick of electric pleasure down my spine. I parted my lips for him.

He whispered, fervently, "Beautiful mouth", and kissed me, a little deeper but still as if he expected me to scream and run out of the room in disgust. I was puzzled. He knew about Victoria. Did he suppose I merely played tiddleywinks with her all night? My erection was so hard it could have been carved out of wood. Surely my desire for him was obvious by now.

But his hesitancy was only adding to his overall charm. It was impossible for me to hold back any longer. I grabbed his head impulsively and plundered his mouth with the force of someone who had been waiting months for the opportunity. Ray made a little sound of surprise in his throat and for a few seconds appeared to be immobile with shock, while I explored his mouth, playing my tongue against his, sucking and drawing on it hard. Then he recovered himself, kissing me back with equal force. Our tongues fought passionately for dominance, we were shaking with need, hearts pounding chest to chest. I put everything I could into that kiss, poured my soul into his open willing mouth, my hunger building with every stroke of my tongue. Unaware of the sheer strength of my feeling, I was forcing him backwards onto the sofa. We fell onto it heavily, breaking apart for a moment, heaving for breath.

"Holy shit, Fraser," he was panting, "what on God's earth was that?"

"I believe," I replied breathlessly, "it was a kiss, Ray."

"No kiddin'." He laughed in a slightly maniacal kind of way, pulling his t-shirt over his head. I pulled mine off as well. The room seemed to have attained the temperature of a tropical rain forest. "Who'd have thought to look at you?"

He was glorious, naked from the waist up, his smooth chest breaking out into sweat. I already knew he was the one. I didn't need to prove it to myself by making love to him. But all the same, I leant forward, licking the sweat off his chest, and we fell hungrily onto one another again.

Though the idea of being kissed to death by Fraser held a certain weird appeal, I had other plans. We'd been kissing like a couple of demented teenagers at a drive-in for too long as far as my cock was concerned. It was throbbing like a jackhammer, begging — no, actually, shrieking for some action. I could have come there and then, let myself go crazy over that beautiful body, rubbing myself over him. He was so gorgeous, it was all it would have taken. But I wanted the works, needed the man too much, longed for him to take me the way he did in my fantasies.

I pulled away from him, my lips bruised and aching. Jesus, could the guy kiss. Eat your heart out, Alex Krycek. "Fraser, I want you," I heaved, "want you, you know, properly." Could the Mountie deal with the word fuck? Surely we were beyond thank you kindlys by now.

"Ah." He brushed back the black damp hair that had fallen, un-Mountie like, over his forehead. "My thoughts exactly," he panted.

I grinned wickedly at him, egging him on, easing off my jeans that he'd already unzipped some time ago. But he wasn't moving. He was frowning at me. "Is there a problem, Frase?" This was not the moment to hear about premature ejaculation or hereditary disorders.

"I am of course familiar with the basic procedure," he announced breathlessly, pulling off his own jeans and revealing a magnificent tool. I'd already caressed it but seeing was definitely believing.

"What d'yer mean, familiar with? You've done this before, Frase, haven't you?"

"No."

I threw my jeans unceremoniously across the floor. "Whaddyer mean, no? What was all that Mr Man of the World equal rights stuff about then?"

"One can approve of something without actually having done it out oneself."

"Oh yeah? So what does that mean? One is gonna approve of me but not do me?"

"No, Ray, I'm just considering the problem of lubrication."

I wondered how he could kiss and make love like he did with only approval to go on. "The problem of lubrication," I mimicked angrily. "I thought, bein' such a man of the world, you'd think to bring yer own!"

"Don't worry, Ray, calm down." He patted my knee, got unsteadily to his feet and, dick first, walked into the kitchen. "You know, Germaine Greer once wrote that everyone is responsible for their own orgasms. Perhaps she meant to include lubricant."

I stood up, knees shaking, to look over the breakfast bar and see what he was doing. If he was going to knock up an omelette, I would pass a bullet through my brain. "I'd be only too glad to be responsible for my own orgasm, Fraser!" I was growing hysterical. "But it's unlikely I'll achieve one with you in the kitchen and me over here!"

His head was stuck in the refrigerator. "Ray? Would you prefer butter, unsaturated margarine or olive oil?"

"Whichever would make me come quicker!"

"I don't think there's —"

"Fraser! Must you take everything I say at face value?"

"Yes, of course."

Oh of course. He was a Mountie. What else could he do? "Fraser, will you come back here and fuck me! All I want up my butt is your dick, saturated or otherwise!"

He was grinning at me over the breakfast bar and I realised he was busy greasing himself. I craned my neck to get a good look. It was a wonderful sight to see in my kitchen. "Ray, you have such a very colorful turn of phrase."

"Yeah." I grinned back. Didn't want to miss anything so I joined him in the kitchen. "And I think that's quite enough, Frase, you're enjoyin' that far too much." I swear he'd grown another inch or so.

With greasy fingers, he pulled me into his arms and we started kissing again, his cock lubricating my stomach. If he held me too hard, I might shoot out of his grip altogether and hit the ceiling. In spite of his apparent ease, Fraser was actually trembling with need and I could feel his heart thumping arhythmically with excitement. I thought of Krycek saying "Well maybe he's had enough of your mouth" and felt chastened. I'd make it easy on my Mountie. It was after all his first time with a man. I turned around in his arms and reached out for the counter in front of me, bending over.

"There, Frase, how's that?"

"Oh Ray, that's so delightfully wicked." He breathed eagerly into my ear, "Are you sure that's okay for you?"

I angled my ass cheeks higher in the air so that, with any luck, he wouldn't need a sextant to find his way. Sure enough, I felt him prodding gently at my entrance like a shy visitor wondering whether or not to just walk right in. "Being delightfully wicked is what I do best, Frase," I moaned, and eased back on him a little, helping him out, impaling myself. There was a stab of pain as my ass muscles complained over the considerable intrusion. It didn't last long. Fraser must have used practically the whole packet of butter because he was inside sweet as you please and easy as pie. He groaned deeply with pleasure and cradled me hard against him.

Possession. This was the stuff, as someone said before me, that dreams are made on. My fantasies made flesh and blood. Sweet, gorgeous Fraser, inside me up to the hilt, his cock engorged and straining for release, throbbing hot and ready inside me. No need for handcuffs, fantasy or any extras, just pure Fraser.

It was impossible to stay still for long, the pull to move was irresistible. I started up a slight but sassy rocking motion with my hips and Fraser groaned even louder, following my rhythm. I guided his right hand, wrapping it around my aching cock. Wasn't long before we were working up a nice little sweat but I still felt he needed more.

"You can do it harder, Frase," I panted, "if you want."

"Didn't want," he groaned, oh I could get hooked on those groans, "to hurt you."

"Harder, do it harder." I am nothing if not encouraging.

And he did. He fucked me with pile driving thrusts that could have dislodged every filling in my teeth. I groaned and gurgled with pleasure, bending low as I could, grinding down on him, losing it finally.

"FRASER!!"

I came so hard that the whole of Chicago might have heard me screaming. Fraser waited with typical politeness til I'd finished and then let himself go, crying out my name, plunging deep enough inside me to set me off on a mini orgasm. He pumped what appeared to be an endless supply of white hot spunk into me.

He was magnificent. Fraser.

I grabbed hold of his hand, squeezing it hard, afraid that as he quietened and stilled, he'd melt away into thin air and I'd be left alone with yet another collection of memories to haunt me. Fraser squeezed my fingers in reply and kissed the back of my neck as if he understood.

Krycek had pulled out once he'd been satisfied. Hadn't seen him for dust. Fraser just stayed where he was, holding me, rocking us both with an imperceptible motion of his arms. I had the weirdest feeling we were in some kind of funky cosmic syncopation, in tune with the movements of the planets and stars.

And I knew then that finally everything was okay. Me and my Mountie were together. All was right with the universe. 

I was like someone who'd stayed in the theatre too long and the movie was coming round again.

Sitting in the middle of my empty apartment, I was perched on a packing case, finishing up the vodka bottle. Staring down at my wrists. The skin had healed over completely, leaving no trace of what had happened. Like tracks in a snowstorm. Like my old life, which had died in this room. My new life was born over there, over the kitchen counter.

"I was getting worried about you." My landlady, Mrs Leibovitch, was taking stock of the empty room. "You're leaving the curtains?"

"Sure," I said. "I won't be needing them any more."

She folded her arms, cushioning them on her breasts. "Phoned the Precinct and they told me you'd gone on an expedition."

"That's right. Lookin' for the Hand of Franklin."

"The Hand of Franklin." I couldn't tell whether this meant anything to her or not. "And did you find it?"

"No."

"Maybe he still needs it, did you think of that?"

I drained my glass and stood up. I walked over to the window and stared out. There were no blinds there any more. "How's Miss Anderson gettin' on? The secretary livin' down the hall."

"Getting married later in the year. Met a very nice young man. So she'll be leaving me too."

I turned round and grinned at her. For some reason, the news made me feel good. "You're a regular little marriage bureau, Mrs Leibovitch."

She frowned. "You're not getting married as well, are you?"

I let that pass. Awkwardly, I handed her an empty envelope. "My forwarding address."

She put on her glasses and read it carefully. "Fort Smith. Sounds like something out of the movies."

"Yeah." I pulled on my coat, doing up the buttons. It was cold outside. "Every so often, we get attacked by Indians but they're usually friendly enough as long as you have plenty of sugar and coffee." She was gazing at me blankly. I cleared my throat. "Actually we live miles away, out in the wilderness. But we go to Fort Smith for provisions."

"I see."

"Ever been to Canada, Mrs Leibovitch?"

"No, never."

"You should go. Take a holiday over there. The air's amazin' and where we are, it's so beautiful you can hardly believe it's real..." I trailed off. Mrs Leibovitch had her head cocked to one side, looking at me as if she was trying to work something out. If I wasn't careful, I'd be telling her about my gorgeous Mountie. About how he was working on our cabin while I was away tidying up my affairs, making some modifications to the heating system in deference to my tender American constitution. About how he wanted everything to be just right for me. About why I was so full of this feeling I could grab hold of Mrs Leibovitch and waltz her round the room.

I gave the old place one last look and shook my landlady's hand. She was still frowning after me as I turned and walked away.

End...

* * *

This contains graphic sex between two adult males. If you're under 17, don't read this or you may spontaneously combust. All X-Files Characters belong to Ten-Thirteen, Chris Carter and 20th Century Fox and are used without permission.

(Set directly after the events of the Due South episode 'Spy v Spy'. I couldn't resist bringing Alex Krycek into this since there's a Russian Connection...)   
  
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